The World On Your Shoulders

I am so very frustrated.

I'm trying not to be. I'm trying to be positive, and upbeat.

It's not working very well.

You know that scene in a movie - where someone is standing on the edge of something very tall? Like a building, or a bridge, or a cliff. Then they close their eyes, spread their arms wide, and just sort of.....fall backward, into nothingness. All peaceful like, with a sad, strange smile on their face.

No? Well, I'm sure it's in some movie somewhere, and if it's not - it ought to be.

I feel like that person. Like I'm on the edge of nothing. I am nothing. I feel nothing. I accomplish nothing. And nothing is waiting for me at the bottom of the black hole.

I could try and list everything, but it may depress you. It involves money, lack of willpower, money, lack of motivation and...money. Yeah. I think we've all been there.

I need a plan. I'm just...lost. There's hundreds of little things swirling around in my brain but I just can't get a grip on any of them. Elusive little things - ideas. Where do I start? What do I do? Eat healthy - with a $200 a month grocery budget? Join a gym? When I can't even pay my rent? I feel weighted down with worries and cares, and I would like it to stop now.

Please, make it stop.


PS - I kid you not. As I finished typing this - my mom called. My sister is in the ER and I have to watch her 3 (small) children at 6am. And I watch my 1 year old niece today. And I have to homeschool my son, deal with my landlord, catch up on all the laundry that was in my flooded basement - and God knows what else. The hits just keep on comin'.

Friend Making Mondays

All The Weigh hosts Friend Making Mondays. I need friends. I blogged avidly for the longest time, then quit for a while. Seems that, if you quit - people stop reading. Who knew? Anyway, here's my (last minute) attempt at making friends. On Monday. Friend Making Monday...see?

1. What are your talents? I sing. Well. I do, it's a fact and one I'm rather proud of. when I sing I am beautiful and free of this fat sack that is my body. I also write - as you can see. I like to think I'm pretty good. (Please - don't burst my bubble.....)

2. What is your best habit? I honestly cannot think of one good habit. Not one. How sad.

3. If you had to be stuck with someone in an elevator for 8 hours, who would you want it to be? Gerard Butler. 8 hours with a blue eyed, Scottish accent speaking hunk of manhood that sings and once played the Phantom of the Opera? Be still, my heart. Where's the nearest elevator....? (Sorry dear Husband, but you know how it is...)

Yum.

4. Share one odd fact about you that we’d never know to ask. Has anyone ever thought that maybe there's a reason no one thinks to ask...? I am obsessed with the symetrical. I have to line everything up symetrically, knick-knacks, food, fridge. It's wierd and drives my family insane.

5. What’s your latest project (work, home, whatever you care to share?) My basement flooded this past week - so...laundry. All 25 loads of it. What, you think I'm kidding??

6. If you could change one thing about how you look, what would it be? Ha. Haha. Hahahaha. My fat. I'd have it removed in an instant. Other that my big fat butt, I love the way I look.

7. What do you do in your spare time? Besides this - I play World of Warcraft. Seriously.

My lvl 85 mage, Cyr - from Aggramar. Told ya.

8. What is your biggest pet peeve? Not pronouncing words correctly, and pEoPle ThAt tYpe lIke tHis.

9. Why do you blog? I like this question. the more I blog, the more conscious I am about what I eat. Blogging keeps food in the forefront of my brain. In a good way.

10. Are you tidy or messy? There's tidy person inside of me, I swear. She just likes to sleep a lot.

11. What’s the last song that played on your iPod? Sweet dreams, from the Sucker Punch soundtrack.

12. Do you cook? When I must. I'm good at it - I'm just to lazy to do it often.

13. Do you like sports? I like dance. And yes it is a sport. Try it and find out.

14. How often do you read and/or watch the news? I check my Yahoo news daily. And my entertainment news. Ok, ok, so mostly my entertainment news. To see if they're saying anything about my Gerard Butler.

15. Did you stick to your new Year’s resolution this year? What New Years resolution? I can't remember mine. Probably had something to do with my weight...so, no. I didn't.

16. What are you looking forward to most in the remainder of 2011? YES. I love my holiday season, I'm so ready for some freaking Christmas cheer.

17. Shoes, sunglasses or handbags? C'mon....thos are the only things that will always fit, no matter how fat you are!

18. How do you feel about sleeping on satin sheets? Never have. Getting some mighty interesting thoughts I'll have to share with my husband. Or Gerard Butler.

19. Do you sing in the shower? Funnily enough - no. I sing everywhere else though!

20. Describe yourself in one word. Vibrant. I asked this question of a boy I had a crush on in 10th grade. This was the answer, and I've always loved - and lived - it.

Chocolate And Me

All I want is chocolate. It's all I can think about. I'm like.....a chocolate zombie. Instead of "braaaiiinns..." I'm moaning "Chocolaaatttte..."

It's sad.

Even my cupboard contents are out to mock me. Every time I open the doors I see this:

And this:

And finally, this:

It's horrible for me. It makes me think about candy bars. 

Despite the temptation though, I have not had one morsel of yummy, delicious, irresistable...

Oh, what was I saying? that's right, no chocolate. I've been a good girl. I almost broke last night - but I remained strong, and had a fruit grain bar thingy instead. 

Told ya I could do this.

Petco Lets Animals Die In Flood

I live in NY, near Binghamton. If you haven't heard by now - our area was flooded this past week. We had a lot of rain from tropical storm Lee - which caused historical flooding throughout Broome County.

There is a Petco in Johnson City, NY. It's in a plaza that houses a few stores - Toys R' Us, Party City, Christmas Tree Shops - to name a few. This plaza has been flooded a few times, most memorably in the Flood of 2006. Keep that in mind as you read what I have to say.

We had had heavy rains that started the night of the 6th. By noon on the 7th of September, the schools were being dismissed and many areas of Broome County were bring evacuated. Highways were being shut down, some were losing power, and almost every store in the area was closing. Including Petco.

The one difference here is that Petco shut their doors - and left the animals inside to drown. We have several pet stores around here, but Petco obviously takes the cake. Pet Depot was flooded too - and were out rescuing the animals, kayaking them out of the store if necessary.

Pet Depot rescue, Vestal NY

Petco's response includes so much spin - it's making me dizzy.

They claim that:
"The flooding was not from the Susquehanna River itself but from a back up in the town’s sewage/drainage system."

Petco is between the blue sign and the red brick

Does it look like that to you? We had record flooding in areas that had never seen water. The places that usually flood saw much more water than normal. Anyone with half a brain could have figured out that Petco would flood. Businesses are required to have insurance, right? Then the insurance people would have surely told the company that the area was prone to flooding. And to place the burden of responsibility on the Johnson City? Shameful.

In the second paragraph of the blog entry, Petco says:
 "We want to stress that this was not carelessness on our associates’ behalf, but a communications lapse from the city to the store in evacuations orders."

Yet in the next paragraph they say:
 "We have a hotline for associates to use if they ever feel an animal is in danger and no calls were made to the hotline suggesting that the associates feared flooding would impact the store and endanger the animals."

So...were the employees careless, or weren't they? Is it their fault they didn't call, or Petco's fault for not making the decision themselves? Surely someone from Petco was aware of the flooding.

The thing that makes me the most angry is this gem:
 "An associate went by to check the store at 11:45 p.m. on Wednesday night and there were no signs of flooding or a flood warning in effect."

Are you kidding me? We had flood warnings in effect from the night before. The night before, people. By 11pm Wednesday night, the place had to have been flooded - so how could an employee check on it? And there were most certainly flood warnings in effect by 11pm.

I myself live in an area that never floods, yet I had 6 inches of water in my basement. So a flood-prone area.....you do the math.

Road at the bottom of my street

Shame on Petco for being so careless and irresponsible. Shame on them for not just issuing a simple apology. A nice heartfelt "I'm sorry" would have worked wonders. So now there is a Boycott Petco page on facebook. I believe there's a demonstration/protest coming up, and I'll be there. The local news is all over this, and I'm hoping national news will pick it up.

Articles can be found at WBNG, and Press and Sun Bulletin.

Hey, Petco...did you get the cash out?

Flooding

So sorry about the lack of posting. I've been busy watching all the flooding. I live near Binghamton, NY. I'm basically stranded and confined to my area. My highway is closed, before and after my town exits. The place where my husband works is almost completely under water, and he can't  get to his school either. It's been crazy here.

So I've been in my house, couldn't go anywhere today. I'm going to attempt to go to a 24 hour store and see what I can find. That's one way to diet - get stuck in your house with little to no food!!!

So that's the sitch. I'll keep you posted and put up some pics later.

Bloggest Loser Challenge

I've found myself another challenge to join. Last year I did My Long Hot Active Summer Challenge, and pooped out halfway through. The upside was, I actually...lost weight. Who knew? So I've joined this one, simply to keep myself on track and maybe make a few friends. We shall see. Click the button to join if you'd like.




It's kind of scary for me, because I don't have a gym membership, and I can't afford one. I also can't afford healthy food, or workout equipment at home. Here's the thing though - if I really want to do this, I'll do it with out all the fancy stuff. I'm the kind of person that's like - "I'll workout when I get my money/membership/treadmill/sneakers".....fill in the blank. Then I buy the stuff - and don't use it. I once spent 140 dollars on the Six Week Body Makeover. My husband blew a fuse and then I never used it. So - no more excuses. No more "if only's". Time to get off the couch and move. All by myself.

On another note, I'm doing well with my self imposed exile from chocolate. Not a morsel has crossed these lips for a whole 5 days. Five days. I impress even myself. It feels good to have the will power to say no to something. The waking up at 9am....not so much. Still trying to cycle my sleep back around to actually sleeping at night.

To sum up: No chocolate, sleep right, move ass, eat less.

Sound good?

Great.....Now All I Want Is A Candy Bar....

Ok, so I've been doing a lot of blog reading. And the one thing I'm noticing is that people who are trying to lose weight seem to set goals for themselves.

Huh. Goals. What is this - how you say? -  "goals"? Yeah, I don't do that too often. My goals are kind of like.."I want not to be a fatass." and " try not to buy all the cheese in the grocery store". Stuff like that.

Since setting goals seems to be an important weight loss tool, I have decided to try and set a few. Plus, it's September first - so it's a good day to start.

1. I am going to give up chocolate for the month of September. I know it sounds nuts - but I need to teach myself what the word "No" means. (except, in my head it looks more like "NO".) So, no chocolate. And no replacing said chocolate with bagfuls of non-chocolate candy. The point is to try and curb my sweet tooth. Because my sweet tooth makes my butt fat.

There were so many yummy pictures to choose from....

2. Wake up every weekday at 9 am. I know that sounds normal - but you have to understand. I am a housewife, with no job, and only one child - who is about 25 years old in a 10 year old's body. I am homeschooling him this year - so I need some structure. Enter the waking up at 9 am idea.

So, that's it for now. If I can do these 2 things - for just a month, at least - than I can achieve more, later on. I totally suck at sticking to anything. Ever. Plus it will give me something more to blog about.  Here goes.

I'll keep you posted.